Before the 'I Do'
by HP Slash Luv
Summary: James' and Lily's thoughts before they get married.


**Written For:**

 **Ultimate Writer Challenge:** Co-write something with another participant

 **Co-written with cinnamon roll scorp**

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 **Before the 'I Do'**

 **Lily**

Today, I was going to become Lily Potter. I couldn't believe my wedding day had arrived. In some ways, it felt like it had taken forever to get there; in other ways, it felt like the time had gone way too fast.

I never thought I would get married at eighteen years old. I was still a kid, or at least that was what it felt like a lot of days, but there was a war brewing, and I didn't know how long either James or I would be alive, and if I died, I wanted to die as James' wife.

I swallowed as I fixed my hair. When I was younger, I fantasized about what my wedding would be like. When I thought about it, I always saw Severus there, his normally dour face smiling gently at me in my happiness. I always thought my best friend would share the day with me, but I knew that even if we had still been friends, he would have refused to come. He would have never attended because of his animosity against James, even if it made me unhappy.

I thought Petunia would stand at my side, act as my witness as I said my vows, but she wasn't there either. She refused to have anything to do with the magical world, even if it was something as simple as coming to my wedding. I wasn't even invited to _her_ wedding, so I really shouldn't have be as surprised as I was.

I wondered if I was making a mistake. Was James really the right man for me? For so long, I couldn't even stand looking at him. He disgusted me, but then, there was like a switch that turned on within me during the last half of sixth year, and suddenly, he was all that I could think about.

We might have known each other for years, but we hadn't dated that long. Maybe the war was making us rush into this. Many people had gotten married because of their fear of what was coming.

I hated being like everyone else—I'd always strived to be extraordinary instead of ordinary—but fear made people do crazy things.

If we survived this war, I wondered if James and I would be strong enough to stay together or would our marriage fall apart at the seams.

I just didn't know if I was making a mistake, but I won't back out, despite my doubts. Today, I was marrying James, and in just over two hours, I would no longer be Lily Evans. Instead, I'd be Lily Potter.

 **James**

After years of pursuing Lily Evans, it was hard enough to believe that she had finally agreed to go on a date with me last year. When she said yes, I just assumed that she would do everything in her power to make sure we never went on another date again. But at the end of the night, she not only said that she had a good time, but she was the one who suggested that we do it again. Who would have thought it would have been her?

I never expected someone as perfect and wonderful as Lily would ever want to be with me, though I always hoped she would want to anyway. She was beautiful, smart, funny, kind-hearted. Simply put, she was perfect. She deserved nothing but the best in the world. I always did everything I could for her, but was that enough? It didn't always feel like it.

And then there was the matter of the war going on. It was a topic most people chose to ignore, but there were times when it was hard not to think about it. I'd always known I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Lily, but what had made me propose so soon? We'd only been dating for a little while, just short of a year. I didn't want to think about the possibility that the dark things going on in the world had some sort of influence over our relationship.

Marrying Lily felt like a now or never situation. The way things were headed in the wizarding world, no one's safety was guaranteed. I wanted to feel like we had the rest of our lives to get married, that there was no rush. But the rest of our lives together might not be very long. One thing I knew was that I didn't want to die without marrying her.

Had her reasons for saying yes been the same as mine had been for proposing? Was the weight of the world weighing on her shoulders when I got on one knee? I wanted to think that she said yes simply because she loved me, but I knew Lily. She was a thinker, and much smarter than I'd ever be. And she wasn't blind to the horrors of the world around us.

I took a last look at myself in the mirror, set to go out into the chapel in only a few minutes. Did it really matter if the state of things influenced why she said yes? She still said yes. And it wasn't as if she didn't love me. I knew she did. So why was I making such a fuss. I told myself that there was nothing to worry about as I headed out into the room where Lily Evans would soon become Lily Potter. Yet, I couldn't shake the feeling of anxiousness, no matter how much I tried.

 _Fin_

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(word count: 921)


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